1968 Polish Political Crisis - Emigration of Polish Citizens of Jewish Origin

Emigration of Polish Citizens of Jewish Origin

There were claims that the Polish government employed anti-Semitic measures. Historian David Engel of YIVO Institute wrote: "The Interior Ministry compiled a card index of all Polish citizens of Jewish origin, even those who had been detached from organized Jewish life for generations. Jews were removed from jobs in public service, including from teaching positions in schools and universities. Pressure was placed upon them to leave the country by bureaucratic actions aimed at undermining their sources of livelihood and sometimes even by physical brutality." "The term 'anti-Zionist campaign' is misleading in two ways, since the campaign – wrote Dariusz Stola of the Polish Academy of Sciences – began as an anti-Israeli policy but quickly turned into an anti-Jewish campaign, and this evident anti-Jewish character remained its distinctive feature". The propaganda equated Jewish origins with Zionist sympathies and thus disloyalty to communist Poland. Anti-Semitic slogans were used in rallies. Prominent Jews: academics, managers, journalists lost their jobs. "In each case – wrote Institute of National Remembrance – the decision of dismissal was proceeded by party’s resolution about expelling from the party".

However, the allegations of anti-Semitism were rejected in Poland. Specifically, two Polish editors denied that anti-Semitism played any part in the government's policies. Jerzy Lobman, editor in chief of Polish Review, said there had been "voices in the foreign press accusing us of anti-Semitism and all sorts of sins" and that these charges were "absolutely unfounded". Marek Arczynski, editor in chief of the weekly Swiatowid, said the charges of anti-Semitism insulted "the memory of thousands of Poles who died helping to save Jews from Hitler."

Responding to claims about anti-Semitism in the foreign media, Glos Pracy, the trade union newspaper, wrote that American media was in no position to criticize Poland since their country itself was guilty of "total tolerance of anti-Semitism.". They went on, "Perhaps material about anti-semitism in Morocco, Argentina, and Poland occupies so much space in the newspapers", the correspondent said, "that there is none left for the American brand."

Most Polish Jews who claimed their official status at the end of World War II, including Holocaust survivors who registered at CKŻP in 1945, had emigrated from Stalinist Poland already in her first years of existence. Of the fewer than 80,000 Jews who remained, many had political reasons for doing so. Consequently – as noted by historian Michael C. Steinlauf – "their group profile ever more closely resembled the mythic Żydokomuna." Many Jews held positions of repressive authority under the new administration. In March 1968 they became the center of an organized campaign to equate Jewish origins with Stalinist sympathies. The political purges affected all Polish Jews regardless of background, even though they were being ostensibly directed at those who had held office during the Stalinist era marked by gross abuse of power and human rights law violations. Over a thousand former hardline Stalinists left Poland in 1968, among them ex prosecutor Helena Wolińska-Brus and Stalinist judge Stefan Michnik. The Polish State Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Institute of National Remembrance, IPN) had investigated Stalinist crimes committed by some of the March 1968 emigrants including Michnik who settled in Sweden, and Wolińska-Brus residing in the United Kingdom. Both were accused of being an "accessory to a court murder" which is punishable by up to ten years in prison, as defined by the Article 2.1 of the Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland issued 18 December 1998. As soon as Poland joined the European Union, applications were made for their extradition based on European Arrest Warrants (EAW). However, Polish requests were refused on humanitarian grounds under the statute of limitations.

Between 1961 and 1967 the average rate of Jewish emigration from Poland was 500–900 persons per year. In 1968 the total of 3,900 Jews submitted their applications for leaving the country. A year later, between January and August 1969, the number of emigrating Jews was almost 7,300 according to records of the Ministry of Interior Affairs.